Last week I celebrated the third anniversary of writing this blog by having a contest.  The winner would receive two skeins of Wollmeise yarn in their choice of lapislazuli, medium amethyst, or one of each.  I was overwhelmed by the many lovely comments you left; thank you very much for your kind thoughts.  The winner of the contest is #25 – Tam J!

Tam asked for two skeins of the Amethyst.  Tam, I will contact you by email to get your address.  Congratulations!  So we can all admire your luck, here is a shot of the lovely yarn:

I had a very busy workshop at the b-school last weekend.  We spent four days (Friday-Monday) in an intense and exciting class on corporate reputation and responsibility.  This was exhausting but fun.  What was not fun was that I was freezing the entire four days.  (Of the 38 people in the room, half of us were bundled in our coats shivering, while the other half claimed to be roasting.)  This led me to two conclusions: (1) the answer to everything is layers, and (2) I need some fingerless mitts.

The observant reader of this blog might interject at this point to say “But, Kelly, you have knit 5 pairs of fingerless mitts over the past few years!”  However, my daughters ended up with two pairs each, and the fifth pair, sadly, is hiding.  What better way to recover from two weeks of full-out craziness than to knit a pair of mitts!

My first attempt, I’m sorry to say, was not successful.  I had a skein of lovely Madelinetosh Tosh Merino DK in Composition Book Grey left over from Leah’s gorgeous cardigan.  I decided it would make a great pair of mitts, and choose this pattern:

copyright verabee

The pattern is by Vera Brosgol and called Masonry Mitts.  I like this pattern.  I love this yarn.  Together: not so much.  It turns out the pattern needs a nice crisp yarn.  The Madtosh is silky and drapey and beautiful, but it is not crisp.  The pattern calls for Cascade 220.  Substituting with the Madtosh was a bad idea:

This is not crisp, it’s floppy!  Clearly, a good blocking would fix it up some, but I think that this is a case of bad yarn-pattern matching.  (Also, it is too big!  It is even too big for Doug!)  This not-quite-finished mitt is heading to the frog pile.

I then spent far too much time searching for an alternate mitt pattern for the Madtosh but nothing was sparking.  A bit of creative thinking led me to this:

copyright AliciaPlum

These are the very sweet Antiquity Mitts, designed by Alicia Plummer.  The pattern calls for a skein of Quince & Co Chickadee wool.  I just happen to have several skeins of Chickadee in a number of colours scattered around the house.  I cast one on this morning and am quite pleased with the result:

This colour is called Honey; I had ordered it on-line for another project and then decided it had too much brown and not enough gold.  It’s been sitting in the stash ever since.  I wasn’t convinced, even this morning as I was casting-on, if I liked the colour, but it is growing on me.  And the pattern is lovely; very charming and quick with some pretty stitchwork:

Thank you again for all of the nice comments.  Here’s to another year of knitting and blogging!